In a letter written by the Sanitary District's Executive Director Cheri Cousins to its board of commissioners, Cousins said they lost power early Monday morning as a result of a wind and rain storm.

The facility gets their power from two separate power sources, so they have backup power if one source goes down. In this case, both were out.

"I think every sanitary district in the country should have a backup generator," Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini said. "There's always going to be power outages. One-hundred-year storms seem to happen every two-three years now and that's what happens."

Explosion at Japanese Pub Injures Over 40 People

The explosion happened in the Northern Japanesse city of Sapporo Sunday evening.

(Published Sunday, Dec. 16, 2018)

An on-site generator started automatically at the Treatment Facility, according to Cousins, but only gave a "preliminary treatment" to the sewage before it went into the river.

The facility is set to add two generators in the next year that would eliminate its need for power from the grid.

Russell said the river will naturally wash the sewage out to the ocean, but it could take days.